


Serrice Ice Brandy

by walkthegale



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drinking & Talking, F/F, Femslash, Mass Effect 2, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5960623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthegale/pseuds/walkthegale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One long and restless night, on the SR-2...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serrice Ice Brandy

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [olderladiesfemslashfest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/olderladiesfemslashfest) collection. 



> _TW for a brief discussion of suicide._  
>     
>  **Prompt:**  
>     
> Chakwas/Samara. 
> 
> One night, on the SR-2... 
> 
> (I ship Chakwas and happiness, who's with me)

Sometimes, Karin wandered the Normandy’s dim corridors late into the ship’s night-cycle, when she had trouble sleeping and her notes weren’t quite enough to keep her occupied. She padded around in sock-feet, an old habit born of years spent in cramped quarters, knowing just how irritating the endless clanking footsteps of a crewmate could be when you had an early duty shift the next day.

She had looped Deck 3 enough times tonight that she was considering going down to Engineering to see if whoever was on the night shift felt like a chat. Or there was always Garrus, who didn’t seem to sleep much these days either. Although, she was a little worried that he might take another late visit as a proposition, and she didn’t feel like explaining that she thought he was very handsome, and that she thoroughly approved in general of the turian method of stress relief in combat situations, but that he was just so very _young_.

Her path took her down the passage and past the door to Starboard Observation yet again, and she was sure she could hear someone moving around behind it, perhaps pacing as restlessly as she was herself. She paused a moment, thought about knocking, but carried on, her feet instead leading her back towards Med Bay.

Karin made sure to spend time with all her crew - keeping track of their states of mind as much as their physical health, and comparing notes with Kelly - because, Cerberus or not, they were hers now, and it was her job to take care of them. Like it had been her job to take care of the crew of the old SR-1. Even the Commander, who sometimes needed someone to talk to more than any of them, although getting her to admit it usually took no small amount of skill, and several measures of Karin’s best brandy.

Samara though… Samara was a tough nut to crack. Karin felt unwelcome with her, unnecessary; as though her words had no place at all in Samara’s strict justicar code. The door to Starboard Observation remained closed and forbidding to any whose name wasn't Shepard.

Karin arrived back at her desk, squinting and dimming the harsh overhead lights to something more palatable. She glanced at her work, but found herself instead reaching for the brandy and a glass. Clearly this was what happened when she started thinking about the Commander late at night. Ah well, perhaps it would help her finally get some sleep, and she would feel a little less good-for-nothing come the next inevitable emergency.

Beyond the big Med Bay windows, a crewman strode past, yawning, and offering a faint smile and a nod as he saw her watching. Something… Vilmos. Lukács Vilmos, that was it. Cerberus must have practically picked him straight out of school, with that baby face. Kitted him out and sent him off on this big, important mission that maybe none of them would come back from.

Karin took another gulp of her brandy, pressing her eyes shut.

The door clicked and swished open, and Karin looked up to find Samara standing there, looking almost awkward. Could an asari justicar be awkward? So she had been awake when Karin passed her door earlier. Maybe she had been listening for fellow insomniacs too.

“Come in, Justicar,” Karin gestured to the chair opposite her own. “Are you unwell? Do you need anything?”

Samara seated herself. “No, Doctor, but thank you for your concern. No, I am restless, I find. The nights are long and my meditations are not what they should be. I... seek companionship. Conversation. I knew you were also awake.”

Karin felt she covered her double-take rather well, all things considered. “Well, my dear Justicar,” she grinned. “Can I offer you a drink?”

Samara took a proffered glass of brandy, peering at it for a few moments before taking a sip. She didn’t smile back, exactly, but her face relaxed a little, her mouth slightly less tense. She had the air, Karin thought, of someone to whom smiling had long become unfamiliar. Perhaps they could work on that a little.

“Do you meditate rather than sleep?” Keen to break the silence before it dragged too long, Karin let her medical curiosity assert itself. Most asari slept, of course, but justicars weren't exactly covered in the handbook, even at the levels Karin had studied. Perhaps she could write a paper, assuming she was around long enough to do such a thing - The Nocturnal Habits of the Stressed Out Justicar.

“A little of both, usually,” Samara admitted. “Meditation fulfills a lot of my body’s needs, but I enjoy sleep. It is not discouraged by the code, although some see it as time that could be better spent. I find it useful though. It is restful in a different way to my meditations.”

“Not recently, though,” Karin supplied.

Samara sighed. “No, Doctor, not recently. I do not think many on this ship find their slumber restful recently.”

Karin felt around for the right words, but it came out blunt nonetheless. “Surely, as a justicar, you must have dealt with similarly high stress situations before? Isn't ‘getting a good night’s sleep while under threat of imminent doom’ part of the training?”

The pause this time stretched out long and thin, until Karin was sure she had made an irreparable error, and that Samara was going to close right up again as quickly as she seemed to have opened. She used the time to fill both their empty glasses, hoping to hold Samara here a little longer at least, although not sure what exactly she thought that might accomplish.

Samara took a long swallow of brandy, and finally spoke, looking into her glass rather than up at Karin. “I am not… It is not the stress. I am extremely adept at dealing with stress, as you say. I have dealt with nothing but stress for the last four hundred years. It is… Something else.”

Karin waited, afraid that anything she might say would break the spell. She hadn't the faintest idea why Samara had chosen to confide in her now, but if there was any chance that Karin could be of any help to her at all, she was damned if wasn't going to give it her best shot. Samara was on Karin’s crew, whether she realised it or not. She watched Samara’s face, but the asari’s blank expression didn't betray her for a second.

“I find,” Samara said at length, “that I hope that we do not make it back from this mission. That _I_ do not make it back.”

Oh. Karin breathed and tried to work out what best to say.

Samara looked up and met her eyes. “I am not planning to take my own life, Doctor. I do not… I do not want to die. But I have lost sight of what my life is, outside of this mission.” She drank again, and held out her glass for Karin to refill. “I searched for Morinth for centuries. She was my mission, my reason. I searched for her, and I followed the justicar code, and my life narrowed down and down until those were the only things that mattered. The only things left.”

“And now Morinth is gone,” Karin nodded. “So what happens next?”

“This Suicide Mission, as Shepard calls it. I have pledged to make it my new reason, now that Morinth is dead. But… I am distracted. When I hunted Morinth I did not know that there could be an ‘after’. The mission was everything, and the concept of it being complete did not seem possible. But now I know. I know there is ‘after’ once the impossible has passed, and it plays on my mind. Prevents me from giving this mission my full self. What if there is an after? What then? Who will I be?” She let out a breath and a look crept into her eyes that Karin would have sworn was almost a wry grin.

“I am approaching one thousand years old. I thought I knew myself well,” Samara continued. “And yet still I wrangle with this problem like a Maiden. _Who am I? What is my purpose?_ ”

Karin smiled slightly. “I don't think any of us ever truly settles that question. Not after a hundred years, and not after a thousand. We change too much, too often, for that.”

Samara flicked her fingers dismissively. “You humans change so quickly. When I was one hundred, I was little more than a child. I had just begun working as a mercenary, but goddess knows why anyone hired me with as little experience as I had then. I have been a mercenary, and an adventurer, and a mother, and a justicar. I do not know if I have the strength in me to become something else.”

“I suppose,” said Karin, after a long moment and a fortifying gulp of brandy, “that you’ll find that out when you get there. If you get there.”

Samara nodded. “I shall. But it weighs on me, and I cannot quite dismiss it. I fear it will affect my performance on the mission.”

“We all give only what we are able. Commander Shepard isn't asking any more of you than that. We each bring what we can to this fight and only time will tell if it’ll be enough.” Karin toyed with her glass, trying not to think, in this exact moment, of all the people for whom it already hadn’t been enough.

“It has been helpful to talk about this, Doctor. As a justicar, I do not often have the chance to spend time with people outside of my duties, and I find I am rusty at it. Am I keeping you from your own rest?” Samara didn't seem in any hurry to get up, and Karin discovered that she wasn't either.

She poured them each another drink, and raised her glass, half-smiling. “I can sleep when I'm dead. Cheers.”

She then had to explain to Samara what “cheers” meant, and found her a very willing student of the history of human drinking customs.

***

Some time later, Karin realised that she was perhaps a touch more tipsy than was strictly advisable when she was on duty the following day. Although, really, she was on duty basically every day while the Normandy was in transit, and it was only fair that she got to relax occasionally. She thought Samara might be in a similar state, although she definitely hid it better.

“I'll see you to your quarters,” Karin said, gallantly.

“You have to pass my quarters on the way to your own,” Samara reminded her, ruining the effect somewhat.

They made their way through the ship, both valiantly trying to pretend that it wasn't taking a little longer than it normally would. By the time they reached the door of Starboard Observation, Samara had a steadying arm around Karin’s waist, and Karin was keenly aware of the light pressure of the asari against her side.

They paused in the doorway, almost long enough for awkwardness to return.

“Would you like to come inside?” Samara asked, her carefully blank expression giving way to just a hint of hope.

Karin thought about tomorrow’s duty shift. She thought about the notes she still had to write up, and the list of crew with appointments to see her. She thought about the mission, and about what fresh hell the Commander might decide to throw them into next.

“Yes,” she said, firmly. “Yes, I would like that very much.”

They were kissing before the door had fully shut behind them, a frantic, desperate kiss, bodies pressed together as though someone might try to pull them apart at any moment. They stumbled over to the sofa without separating for a second, and Samara sat, pulling Karin down into her lap.

Their kisses slowed then, into a full appreciation of each other’s mouths. Samara’s lips were slightly warmer than her own, Karin noted, which made sense given standard asari body temperature… Oh. Her thoughts derailed as Samara’s hands found their way under her shirt. She occupied herself happily exploring Samara’s neck and shoulders and incredibly impressive cleavage with lips and tongue and teeth, gratified when Samara shuddered and suggested that they move to the bed.

Karin had never had the pleasure of an asari bedmate before, but it turned out that Commander Shepard was really onto something. She wondered briefly if Liara could do all the things that Samara could, or if that took age and experience. Perhaps it was the biotics that made it feel like Samara’s hands were electric when they touched her, or perhaps that was some feature of the mind contact? She hardly had time to consider it before the sensation stole all conscious thought away from her again.

A little later, still catching her breath, it turned out that Karin’s textbook knowledge of asari anatomy came in very handy indeed.

They both slept finally, for a very short while, curled close together under a pile of blankets. Samara liked to be warm.

It was with great reluctance that Karin dragged herself out of bed and back into her clothes, hoping to make it to the showers before the rest of the day shift woke up.

“We will do this again,” Samara stated, blinking at her lazily.

Karin grinned. “Try keeping me out now I know how much more comfortable your bed is than mine.”

Samara smiled.


End file.
